The Applied Science of Chakra
by edao
Summary: Chakra: Meet Science. I know you don't know each other very well yet, but I have the utmost confidence you'll become the best of friends. Prior knowledge for Naruto required, but not for science/engineering. The OC will remain a side character to canon and the greater development of the whole "Naruto"-story. And no, I don't ship them, nor do I plan nor want to. (Hitsplosion, whoa?)
1. Dirt

**Note:** This idea in my head didn't want to leave me, so I wrote this. Basic premix: the scientific method applied to chakra, results applied to fights. Don't expect any HPMOR-rationality, though. It's more in the line of "Let's see how much we can f this up without breaking it wholesome."

* * *

"Okay, let me get this straight. Chakra is this mythical life-force. Everyone is producing it, every_thing_ even. And people can, with training, influence this and force it to act."

Naruto nodded. He wasn't sure why he had actually started talking to this civilian kid in Wave, but it was an interesting conversation. The girl sitting across from him was the daughter of one of the bridge building craftsmen, helping her father by handing him tools and material. Essentially the same work Naruto and his clones did, since neither of them could help in the craft of building the bridge. But legwork _they_ did freed up the experts for other stuff, making the whole project take that much less time.

Be that as it may, it was clear the girl wouldn't exactly follow her father's footsteps, not directly. Her mind was too inquisitive, too curious, wondering if maybe other materials would work better than those they used now. Would iron nails be better, or steel? Maybe wooden nails instead, in consideration of the damp climate of Wave?

"Yeah. Kind of? You have the physical energy in your cells, and your mind energy from your mind and you mould them. Iruka-sensei said that's like making steel with iron and coal, but I think of it like mixing milk and cocoa. You can't separate them after, right? And it's like you mix them in your stomach, but I never tried that because cocoa powder is so dry I can't swallow it…" Naruto continued to ramble as the girl opposite him furrowed her brow.

"So why don't they teach it to everyone? I've seen what you've done," Naruto had winced at that, but didn't say anything. He knew she was referring to a more general picture of what he, as a ninja, had done, not the gruesome actions that had taken place on the bridge, the killings he had taken part in. "It seems like people could do a lot with that kind of power. All the Naruto clones, for instance, and the walking on trees stuff. By the way, is that limited to trees?"

Naruto was still too trusting and starved for friendship to wonder if he was being spied upon by some other ninja. He honestly thought she was just curious and he didn't mind talking about his job and what were nominally not exactly state, but at the very least professional secrets. Beside, what could one girl at their age do, one who had never had any chakra training like the academy students had had? Her chakra coils were on a civilian level, so even if she somehow learned to mould chakra, it would amount to very little capability. Not even remotely anything in the same ballpark as he would now expand upon.

"Not only trees! Anything I concentrate on, I can walk on. Doesn't matter what it is!"

"Huh." The girl was a bit dumbfounded at that. Then a curious gleam went into his eyes. "D'you mind to test it?"

"What do you mean?"

She rummaged through her pockets for a treat her father had given her not too long ago. Food was still hard to come by, especially candy, but if she could expand her knowledge about the capabilities and limitations about this 'Chakra' she would certainly think it worthwhile.

"Here." She put the candy on the tabletop. "I bet I can find something you cannot walk on using chakra." She shoved the candy into the middle of the table. "Do you accept the bet?"

The blond ninja was both intrigued and suspicious of the bet. On one hand he wanted both to show off his prowess in the ninja arts, and of his ninja way, on the other hand he knew the girl only a little. He didn't even know her name yet…

"But what will you gain from this bet?"

At this the girl showed a toothy grin. "Something worth a thousand candies: knowledge."

That didn't exactly mollify the young ninja. He may not have had the highest marks in the academy (quite the opposite, actually), but that didn't mean he did not pay occasionally attention or managed to snatch the one or other bit of useful information from the teachings. Among them was quite a bit on information, and its worth inside the ninja world – and outside. So Naruto knew the girl was right, in a certain sense: knowledge could be worth magnitudes more than a simple piece of candy.

Albeit that candy looked awfully delicious… And she didn't ask for any real secrets, not anything she couldn't come by if she tried some other means… Oh well, what could possibly go wrong?

"Okay, then. What do you have in mind?"

* * *

A few days later the both of them stood next to a building on the outskirts of the town, near the street that lead to the soon-to-be-completed bridge. It had simply taken that long for Naruto to have some spare time again. The leader of Naruto's team had placed the three ninja under his care on a rotating schedule. Every day one of them was helping in the construction of the bridge, while the other two spent the day sparring and receiving lessons and instructions in various ninja techniques by their leader. That way he could ingrain the lessons deeper, while giving each of them focus as well as granting them the chance to recuperate somewhat, both mentally and physically, by helping the other workers on the bridge.

Nominally the three children had already had finished the tree-walking exercise given to them by their team leader days prior. After their much higher ranked ninja-instructor had shown them what one proficient in that simple exercise could actually do – walking around the trunk of the tree, lying on the underside of a branch, standing upside down for as long as he cared to – both his team mates Sakura and Sasuke, as well as Naruto himself, decided they could still improve.

After all, merely having a skill did not mean one had mastered it.

Pulling out a notebook and a pencil from her bag she flipped to a new page and wrote on the very top: Ninja notes.

"Okay, let's begin simple. Can you walk on a wall?"

Naruto snorted at that. "Pshyeah!" He took a few steps to the building, placed a foot on the side of it and walked in the strangest disregard of gravity the girl had ever seen. Once he was a meter and a half off the ground, she asked him to stop.

"Wait, hold your stance. Keep standing there while I take your time." They girl started counting out seconds as best as she was able to without any watch or clock nearby. After reaching twenty she started making scratch marks while talking to the ninja who was casually defying gravity, though by now not so nonchalantly anymore.

"Why~?" Naruto groaned. He didn't want to stand all the time in the same spot, and the physical tension of keeping his body parallel to the ground was getting to his calves and back muscles.

"Because _you_ want candy and _I_ at first wanted to know if you needed to move constantly to walk on walls." As she finished writing that down into her notebook she looked up at the visually straining Naruto. "Case in point: you don't."

Finally the ninja couldn't take it anymore and put out his arms out before collapsing to the ground. Gasping for breath he rolled over on his back.

"I didn't remember it being this hard!"

"Maybe it wasn't? How long did you hold your position your last time?"

"I don't know? The last times we were running up trees, marking how far we came until we reached the top. Sakura was the first, and Sasuke and me competed who'd reach the top next."

The girl made another note at that, verifying trees as viable surface.

"You see? Already you learned something. So I'm both keeping your and my end of our bet." She smiled at that. Kneeling down next to the prone ninja the girl continued her conversation as well as investigation.

"What have you tried walking on? Beside trees and this wall, I mean?" Naruto looked at her blankly, already nearly having regained his breath. "You mean nothing? Aren't you curious what the limits are?"

"Well, I've seen Kakashi-sensei walk on water…"

It was the girl's turn to look blankly at him.

"On water. Ninja can walk on water." That certainly did not resolve with her perceptions and mindset about the rules of the what-was-possible and rules of the universe at large. If everyone could theoretically learn chakra and thus walk on water, why need bridges? Wait. Carts and stuff wouldn't also roll on water when a person who could walk on water pulled one, right? That might be it…

While the girl was trying to reconcile her world view with this new knowledge, Naruto rose to his feet and held out a hand for her to do the same.

"You're okay, right?"

Still with a certain shock on her face the girl discarded a lot of her notes and speculations as 'all but confirmed', leaving her with very little in regards to the whole walking thing.

"Yeah, I'll survive." She shook her head to get in the right head space again. "Okay, that actually helps a lot. Only a few things to try out now." For the next question she looked pleadingly at Naruto. "But first, please tell me Ninja can't walk on air or something ridiculous like that!"

After giving that some thought, the ninja denied her guess. "I don't know of any flying ninja, at least. But that would be so cool! Imagine flying!"

Relaxing at that she calmed visibly down. Some modicum of respect for the laws of physics at last. Ripping a page out of her note book, she spit on one side and plastered it on the wall. It stuck to the same.

"Okay, new test. Walk on the wall, put one foot on the paper, one on the wall. No need to stand there for long."

Naruto screwed up his face "I don't want to walk in your spit!"

The girl just rolled her eyes. "Spit's on the other side, now get to it. You still want the candy, right?" She mischievously didn't tell him that she technically wasn't obligated to give him her candy anymore, since she found something he couldn't walk on: air. But why loose a source of knowledge prematurely?

Naruto obliged the instruction with a doubtful face. So far he hadn't had any reason to worry. When he stood with one foot on the paper, the girl tried to tuck it from under the foot. It didn't budge the slightest.

"Now I want you to lift _this_ foot very softly. Ideally the page will stick to your foot." Again Naruto did as instructed, and again everything went fine. The paper stuck ever so slightly to his foot. With a soft tuck the girl was able to remove it from the sole of his foot, only to plaster it once more against the wall.

"Now, put the foot down again on the paper. But this time, stick your foot to the paper as hard as you can without sticking to the wall with that foot at the same time." After explaining once more and demonstrating with her hands what she meant Naruto to do with his feet, the ninja understood and complied.

It was successful. Somewhat. The paper at least was sticking with more force to the foot than before, but not as strongly as when Naruto actually stood on it.

"Okay, that's it, for now." At this Naruto came flipped down from the wall. "Well, there's one more thing. Could you stick to the ground, but only softly, and then lift your leg?"

Naruto wondered at the reasoning for that, but, well, thrice the charm, what's the harm, right?

Like all the times before, first Naruto moulded chakra in the bottom of his stomach and then sent it down his legs. He felt it pass through both the soles of his feet and entering the ground in a swirling motion. After solidifying the previously very liquid chakra, he pulled the energy molasses back to his feet, anchoring him to the ground. Then he reduced the chakra being funnelled to one foot until he could barely feel the feedback anymore.

Trying to lift his heel, Naruto was momentarily confused. Lifting his leg was harder than normal, until his foot came free with a jerk. Huh. Look at that. Some of the ground was sticking to the sole, parts of soil crumbling away.

He looked confused at the girl, who was smiling broadly, the broadest smile the ninja had seen on her face since they met. Whatever had happened, she enjoyed it very much.

"Yes! I guessed as much, but this confirms it!"

"What confirms what?"

"The chakra stickiness! I don't know how _it_ works, but _how_ it works!"

"Say what?"

"However it does what it does, it works by projecting a kind of stickiness from the soles of your feet. You can either adjust the degree of stickiness or depth of it! Remember the paper? You could stand equally well with either the foot on the paper or the one directly on the wall, right?"

Naruto nodded questioningly at that, albeit happy his new acquaintance was happy.

"The stickiness went _through_ the paper, keeping you sticking to the wall. But then when I asked you to stick only the paper to the foot, with different degrees of stickiness, you could lift your foot off the wall and have the paper stick to to your foot! That means the stickiness was limited in depth or intensity. Or maybe both!" She excitedly continued with her observation. "But that's not all! The last bit with the ground means a lot! But I still have to think on it a bit more. There are so many possibilities! It's like manmade superglue!"

"That is great! I don't understand all, but some of it I didn't know! Do you mind if I ask Kakashi-sensei some of this stuff? If what you discovered is true, he may have some advice." At this Naruto quickly cast a few side glances around. Satisfied at not having sees another person, he leaned closer, whispering conspiratorially. "He may be reading perverted books, but he knows a lot about being a ninja. I'm sure he knows something about that!"

It was this moment Naruto realised he had yet to train with his teammates. The plan had called for them to spar one-on-one and later in a small, moderated battle royal; both to get accustomed to their techniques as well as their capabilities. Naruto just had thought about now would be the time the one-on-one would have finished and he'd need to join for the free-for-all.

"I have to train with Sakura-chan and Sasuke now. Do you mind if we call it a day?"

Waving her note book she answered, "sure, I need to put some thought into this, anyway. Tomorrow, same time and place?"

"I'll be there!" He turned to his clones helping the workers on the bridge. "Guys, it's time to train!" At this the Naruto clones roared back, somewhat simultaneously "We know!" before forming seals to dispel themselves once their immediate tasks were finished.

"Bye, Naruto!"

As he turned, Naruto stopped. He had nearly forgotten to ask her name, again!

"Hey, I forgot! What's your name?"

Laughing at that, she smiled at him. "Aoi!" Then she waved and turned her back to him, walking along the street, her mind already embroiled in the possibilities and implications of this 'chakra'.

* * *

"Kakashi-sensei!" The jounin, the highest regular rank among ninja, looked up from his recent reading. And just when the main character was about to stumble in the women's bath, to boot!

"What is it."

"Naruto is cheating!"

"I'm not!"

"You totally do!"

"Do not!"

The pink haired kunoichi, the female ninja, was of the same age and comparable height to Naruto. The both of them had been sparring, with the occasional glance by Kakashi to make note of, but not yet correct this or that error they had in their techniques. While Sakura wasn't exactly a prodigy, she had the basics down top-notch, but lacking a bit in the speed department, and being too predictable.

Naruto on the other hand was a mess. Wherever he had learned what he called techniques, the teaching had been very sloppy. Many of his stances were off kilter and to compensate he applied either too much or too little force in his jabs, kicks and throws. Sakura shouldn't have any problem dealing with him. So why was she complaining about cheating?

Sighing mentally, he put the book back into his pocket.

"What did he do?"

"He kicked dirt at my face!"

Kakashi looked pointedly at his student, who managed to look both guilty and defiant. Sakura, on the other hand, looked as if she was about be vindicated.

"Well done, Naruto." Both of them sputtered at that, one because he didn't understand, and the other due to feeling a lot of indignation. Somehow exuding calmness, Kakashi continued.

"Naruto, you did well because you thought outside of the parameters given to you. You were both sparring to improve your martial arts, but neither of you should expect the other to 'play fair'. Ninja don't play fair. Ninja play to win. To utterly defeat the enemy. If the enemy is whimpering on the ground after we beat the crap out of him, even better." Naruto was grinning hugely at the praise, only to have it wiped from his face a moment later.

"However, Naruto, this was and is a sparring match. Its goal is to improve your martial arts, which neither of you have mastered yet. Especially you, Naruto. Sakura, you will perform the movements of techniques. Naruto will observe," Sakura was about to protest, she did not want to give Naruto any sanctioned reason to stare at her, but was mollified by the continued explanation. "And he will repeat your moves. If he does so badly, you can correct him." Sakura did not miss the leeway this instruction gave her in methods to 'correct' the brat.

"By the way, where did you come up with dirt? The ground is pretty solid here and Sakura didn't fall at any point for you to kick sand in her face."

"It's easier to show, okay?" At that Naruto simply lifted his foot jerkily with a bit of condensed ground sticking to the sole.

"Your shoes are spiked? That can be dangerous, especially of your sparring partner doesn't know that."

"No!" With a bit of indignation evident on his face, he stopped the chakra flowing to his foot completely, which let the lifted earth instantly fall to the ground. "See, no spikes."

"Wait. You lifted the ground with your chakra? How did you come up with that?"

A bit awkwardly Naruto admitted, "I didn't, a… friend did."

At that Kakashi narrowed his only visible eye suspiciously. The other was occluded by a strap of cloth that held a metal plate. Etched in that plate was the symbol of their village, Hidden Leaf. Thus, he had only one left to look at them.

"A friend. You don't say…" He then relaxed outwardly again, giving the two of them the appearance and go-ahead to continue with their match, but this time only with the agreed upon moves. Sakura was soon enough exasperatedly correcting Naruto's wrong stances and movements, and quite a few times unable to refrain from punching him. Kakashi on the other hand was both intrigued and worried. 'A friend, he says, a friend comes up with such an oblique application of simple walking is a 'friend' I certainly need to keep an eye on…'

* * *

**Note:** I don't know where this will lead to, but don't expect a lot of updates, or at least not a lot of story. This is mere mutated bunny repeatedly screaming "KANEDA!" at me. I _think_ it will go into scenes of the manga (or anime) I remember and give Naruto some new unexpected moves, and his opponents reactions to the same freaky techniques, but the overall plot will essentially be the same. And I'll definitely stick to before the time skip.


	2. Bark

Kakashi was a pretty laid back kind of guy. Much of his philosophy was, surprisingly enough, congruent with that of a certain Nara Shikamaru of the same graduating year as his students. They both valued being left to their own devices, and subsequently were fine with leaving others to their own, respectively. But while Shikamaru was holder of a prodigious intellect, allowing him to deduce a whole slew of information based on the most meagre of evidence, making logical leaps and bounds like a demented rabbit, Kakashi didn't have that particular tool in his mental shed. Oh, he had a lot of others, some horrifying, others disturbing in every sense of the word one can think of, and quite a few one can't think of, and it was this and his years of experience that allowed him to realise that the girl Naruto was meeting was up to no bad.

Quite honestly put, she was bland. A civilian, slightly smaller than Naruto, but probably also in her twelfth or thirteenth year. Aoi was the apprentice to her father, one of the bridge builders, who was originally a carpenter but one who had expanded his knowledge to crossing streams successfully. Her mother was missing, likely due to extortions, bandits or some of the other calamities that had befallen the Wave Country in the last decade. It was sad, granted, but nothing out of the ordinary, especially compared to ninja. And if talking with that girl helped the blond ninja to deal with Zabuza and his apprentice, whatever _that_ was all about, even better. Though Kakashi was quite aware he would have to talk with Naruto about it rather sooner than later. He really dreaded that conversation…

He had followed Naruto once he had separated from the working force that helped the bridge builders, but only after the original had made sure they had quite enough helping hands already, thank you very much. After that he had excitedly jumped over to the girl and taken her by the hand, dragging her from the rest of the builders after she had realised her help wouldn't be needed anymore. Then the blond ninja regaled his tale of the sparring match yesterday to her.

"Sakura-chan is a lot better than I am in taijutsu, so her punches and kicks really hurt, but then I remembered what we tried last time with the ground sticking to my feet. So while I was already sticking to the ground to hold my position, I changed the chakra just so and then kicked Sakura. She of course blocked, but while I was kicking I totally cut the chakra in my feet so the dirt that was sticking to my kicking foot kept moving. Like I said, Sakura was blocking my foot, but she could do nothing about the dirt that was flying at her!" While he gestured wildly, Aoi was smiling at him. It was nice he could already apply their findings so readily. But being a ninja seemed hard, always kicking and punching and fighting. In a sense she was glad she hadn't grown up in one of the ninja villages. She didn't like fighting much. But the downside was, of course, that she hadn't had the opportunity to learn to work with chakra.

"So what happened then? Did you win?"

"Nah, Sakura didn't like what I did and complained to Kakashi-sensei. He said what I did was right and wrong, because we should've improved our moves, not fight to win. So he had Sakura instruct me how to move, and when I didn't do it right she was allowed to punch me." At her furrowed look he quickly added, "I improved a lot, though!"

"She sounds like a hard teacher…"

"Yeah, but it works, right?" She looked at him skeptically, but conceded the point.

"Okay, fine. I didn't expect you to use that earth move, though. Did you experiment with it?"

Naruto shook his head. "Nah, I didn't. I already can do it, so why should I?"

"You didn't just say that, did you?" Aoi groaned. "Think on it: without experimenting you wouldn't have known that was possible. Now that you _do_ know, you can try if there are easier ways. That way you can do it more often, because you don't have to work as much for the same results. It's like your tree-walking. Even though you _can_ do it, you can still do it better. Understand?"

While she had talked, Naruto had sat down on the ground, recognising her tone of voice. He knew that lecture mode, that manner of speaking, from his teachers at the academy as well as Kakashi-sensei. Even Sakura, though her speech was more 'pointed' than Aoi's. At her question he nodded automatically and was a bit surprised he actually did understand what she meant.

"Okay, let us think. When we dig, what makes that job easier?" Both were heavily thinking, while Kakashi was satisfied with his discoveries. She didn't seem to be a spy, or any other kind of danger. At least not one Naruto wasn't able to deal with. He went back to Sakura's and Sasuke's sparring. He had planned for each of them to help the bridge builders taking turns, while the other two spending time sparring and training their taijuttsu, their martial arts. Naruto had an advantage in the help department, for his inhuman chakra reserves allowed him to spawn shadow clones pretty much indiscriminately. If he spent his thus freed time studying, even better.

* * *

Both of them were up to their knees in mud. Moving was possible – barely – and made an odd squelching sound. Aoi's pants legs were cuffed up above her knees, while her shoes lay aside on dry land.

She put her hand on the mud next to her. Then she lifted it, with a bit of the mud sticking to her palm. Sighing she repeated the gesture, but this time she plunged her fingers into the mud as well. Once she lifted her hand again, much more mud was removed.

"See, it looks the same as when you did that with your feet and chakra. Though I don't know why you couldn't walk on it."

Naruto next to her was in the same position as her, up to his knees in the mud. Unfortunately he hadn't had the foresight to try to walk on mud bare-footed. Due to that his shoes as well as the lower parts of his orange pants were quite soggy and wet. He really didn't want to think what his team would say to that…

"It felt wrong, somehow. It felt like trying to walk on clouds."

The reply came promptly and deadpan. "Please tell me you can't walk on clouds, Naruto."

The addressed just grinned at that. "Nope. No flying, no sky walking." Though he couldn't refrain from adding "none that I know of." He started squelching to dry lands and heaved himself out of the mud. After putting his sandals aside, he went back to the mud and stood on the rock he had heaved himself out on. Putting a bare foot on the mud, he concentrated on his chakra. He let it flow into what counted for the ground and solidify somewhat, having his chakra partially flow back into his foot, partially disperse much more broadly than it usually did. Then he tried to lift the foot.

It budged, a mud bump rising with it. Both confused and a bit angry at that, he tried to lift harder, only to barely keep his balance when his foot and a good chunk of mud came loose at the same time.

Aoi looked gleefully at his awkwardly raised foot, not minding the mud slowly dropping from it. "Look at that! Wait, you can't, wrong perspective," she corrected herself. "Doesn't matter, here!" She prodded a few places just off his heel, "there are whirls and eddies and they _move_! When I touch them I can feel a tug pulling my fingers to your foot. That's _fascinating_!"

Naruto meanwhile corrected his stance and shifted his position so he could see the underside of his raised foot. "That looks funny. I can feel the chakra moving, and I can see it moving mud around at the same time… that's cool!"

Aoi on the other hand hadn't removed her eyes from the strangely fascinating sight. She had to exert some willpower to refocus on the task at hand.

"Okay, we _have_ to investigate that at a later time, but first things first." At that she repeated her finger plunge into the mud from before. Lifting the hand and holding it next to his foot, she pointed out.

"See how the mud moves essentially the same like it did with your foot, the strange whirls aside?" Once more the girl repeated the move to demonstrate. "We can use this like… like a puppet for the real thing." She realised she had lost her playmate. "I mean, puppets are meant to be stand-ins for people, you understand?"

Naruto nodded, the spark of recognition on his face and a leap of logic in his mind. "So your hand represents my foot with chakra!"

"Exactly! But not just my hands, but rather _a_ hand with the finger curled like I did. And probably only for this special case, but that's not really important. What _is_ important is, we can try out methods with hands much more easily, and both of us at the same time, so we should have results that much faster. So our challenge is to try various ways to move a hand to lift mud that makes that whole task easier."

Since Naruto now understood the challenge, he rose to it with vigour. Aoi didn't know this, but Naruto liked challenges, and she would only later realise the way she would phrase requests of this nature in such a way for the most immediate results. Shoving his hands nearly into the mud and ripping the same from its cold, semi-liquid brethren soon led to some positive results. Naruto and Aoi both knew now how to move their hands for maximum results, and minimum as well.

* * *

They had spent half an hour washing up, though most of that was used to get Naruto's orange pants back to a proper colour. Funnily enough Naruto was now harder to see, or at least his lower legs were, when he tried to blend into a background with foliage.

With the pants, socks and sandals hanging out to dry, Naruto was in his underpants and barefooted as he tried to apply the lessons learned wrestling with mud. Aoi was eager to help and give him pointers and reminders as he did so.

"So you _can_ feel the ground and its structure via chakra. That is interesting…" Naruto thought the girl found a lot of things interesting and gathered it was kind of her trademark phrase as she started to write this new bit of knowledge down.

"Yeah. Like I said. The ground is solid, the mud was fluffy, but that's the same like feeling what I'm standing on with my feet. Pebbles crunch, sand is soft, stone is hard. You feel the same with your feet, right?"

"Sure I do, Naruto, but, well… if I put a thin piece of wood on the ground and stood on it, I couldn't tell _what_ ground the piece is resting on. You, on the other hand, _might_ be able to do that."

"I… yeah, I see. I never thought of that."

"Yep, that's what I'm here for." She gave him a friendly jab on the shoulder, way less forcefully than any jab he had received from Sakura. It was more of a pat, really, given with a fist instead of an opened hand.

"Now, you remember the twisting move that worked so well? Try it." With the tongue peeking out the corner of her mouth Aoi got ready to take notes.

Naruto once again complied. First he lifted a bit of ground like he had the last time against Sakura, and then he tried the new variation. First sticking to the ground, then turning his foot and forcing the parts of the ground sticking to his foot to turn with the foot. Then he lifted it again.

"Look, it's less ground, as expected. Did you use the same amount of chakra? Good. But was it harder to lift your foot?"

At that question Naruto furrowed his brow. "Of course not, why would you ask that? It was easier, like with the hands." As he said that, he realised what he just said. "It was easier… so I could use that move more often, and I can hide it as a stance shift, too. That's great!" Laughing at this realisation he jumped up, incidentally kicking the loosened earth at Aoi.

"Hey, be careful!" There was no venom in her voice, though. "Not everyone can move in the blink of an eye and avoid arrows and thrown sand."

"Sorry," Naruto said, rubbing his head sheepishly. Aoi just waved the apology off.

Then an inquisitive look entered her face. "Hm. I wonder if you can separate materials…"

* * *

An old log that was way too wet to be used for firewood had been lying on the side of the nearby forrest for weeks and was already on its way to turning to mulch. So after the mud Aoi was obviously intending for Naruto to stand on that half-rotten excuse for a tree. She might have a sharp mind, but discomfort in others was not something she cared about. Grudgingly Naruto carefully climbed onto the horizontally lying log. He could have jumped, but there was the possibility of crashing into a hollow made by insects, something that had already happened to him once in his home village, Konoha; outsiders referred to it as Hidden Leaf, though.

Crashing into such a hollow was not an experience he had any intention to repeat, especially not in underpants. He still could feel the bites of the termites as he remembered that incident…

"Now what?"

"Now you do your sticky lifting thing. But only lift the bark! And don't look at me like that, I want to know if it's possible, and so do you!"

"No, I don't. Well, now I do, but I didn't wanted to!"

Rolling her eyes Aoi made a shooing motion at which Naruto rolled his eyes in turn, but twisted and lifted his foot, only the bark sticking to his bare sole.

"This tree is _really_ rotting. Look at all those insects!" Naruto momentarily forgotten, she prodded a few of the springtails, cockroaches and centipedes. Soon enough she focused back onto the matter at hand.

"Take a step back so you have a new stretch of bark under your feet. Right. Now stick as much as you can to the tree, not only the bark, and try to lift again."

At first Naruto didn't succeed in lifting his foot, but with twisting and turning his food and gradually shredding the inner parts of the log he did it and a bigger part of the tree, filled with tunnels and their still living inhabitants, came free. It was about the size and length of his thigh, with parts of wet wood sticking out significantly past the diameter. He kicked the part ripped free onto the ground and jumped from the spot he was perched on, landing next to Aoi.

"Satisfied?"

Touching her lips with her pencil it was obvious the dark-haired girl was deep in thought. She answer very slowly and drawn out. "…Yeah." Judging by that, at the moment she was preoccupied with her current train of thought, wherever it was leading her. "Do you think you could do that with a regular tree? Oh, never mind. Your instructor probably has some more training for you anyway."

"Actually, Kakashi-sensei said I was free to do what I want for the day, but have to keep a lookout for the construction site. Which I am." He grinned as he pointed at the many orange-clad clones roaming the bridge in the distance. For a change the fog had lifted enough so the line of sight was at a few hundred metres, enough to see the many workers and glaringly orange helpers on and around the bridge. If fog would rise again, which was not unlikely given the season, he'd need to get closer to the bridge again and they'd need to come up with other tests, or look for appropriate trees there.

"Well, I need to write my notes down better and organise it, so I don't get confused later. And after lunch I have to do dad's paper work."

"Oh…" Naruto was a bit dejected by that. While Aoi's ideas and instructions were often strange, she was a good friend, and he needed one right now. He could've sparred with Sasuke, sure, but today both he and Sakura were scheduled for sparring, and the kunoichi would do her best to make the distinction between metaphorically and literally ripping one's head off a moot point if he bothered her during her 'alone time with Sasuke~'.

"You can try to walk on mud, though. When your teacher can do water-walking, than you should be able to learn that, too. Who knows, maybe you'll be the first mud-walker?"

He was both relieved at having someone to spend time with (he disliked alone time when he had the chance to play with friends) and sceptical of becoming a famous mud-walker at the same time. Since he didn't plan on looking a gift horse in the mouth…

"Sure. Can you write your notes on the shore, tough?"

"That I can. Would you kindly bring some of the sand along? It might help you."

"No problem!"

* * *

It was some C-Mission, a real C-Mission, not the debacle that was the now notorious Wave mission.

That particular mission had been screwed up beyond all recognition, not by the three genin, which was the lowest ninja rank, nor by their jounin instructor, but simply due to circumstance and false intel. The official mission ranks were D, C, B, A and S, from easiest to hardest, though Konoha rarely if ever handed out S-ranked missions. Those missions rose from one of the lower ranks into S-rank by unexpected developments and were adjusted in difficulty recognition – and pay – only after the fact.  
Akin to those missions was the nominal C-Mission that was Wave. Originally a mere escort/bodyguard mission for the duration of a month or so, it soon rose to B-rank when two chuunin, ninja of medium rank, attacked. This incident uncovered the subterfuge of the original contract. It became clear the mission may even have a chance to rise to A-rank, and thus hardly a mission fit for the three genin. That chance became certainty when the group was attacked by a jounin, who also happened to be a missing nin, a fugitive of another ninja village. After that whole shebang had passed they were left with a dead jounin, a dead chuunin, two more captured, all from the enemy's side, and the Konoha ninja fared only barely better in the regard of where they landed on the line separating life from death.

No, _this_ C-ranked mission had merely bandits. Untrained in the ninja arts, but with some danger due to their martial skills acquired in combat, on streets and one notable case an actual dojo, by a master in a training hall. The story of that particular bandit, though certainly interesting, is of no consequence for now.

"WHY DID YOU DO THAT," screamed Sakura at her blond teammate. She didn't even have those particular parts and she still felt empathically with that one bandit among the dozen that had attacked them and had the unfortunate luck to become one of Naruto's unexpected and unwilling test subjects.

"I don't know! I didn't plan to hurt him! I mean, I planned to hurt him, but not that way!" He was certainly right, he did not intend for that to happen. Sure, the enemy was out of the fight, but not in the way Naruto had wanted.

What Naruto had wanted was to kick some bark at him, like he did with the sand a few weeks prior at Sakura. What had actually happened, though…

Kakashi meanwhile was looking both interested and perturbed at the wooden shrapnel sticking expertly through the crotch of the bandit, pinning him to the tree behind him. The interest was purely professional – not for an instant would he believe Naruto either able or capable to inflict such a wound intentionally. Perturbation because, well, Naruto had inadvertently managed to both penectomise and orchiectomyse the bandit, purely by accident, without actually killing him. He was certain not even Ibiki, the resident torture specialist of Konoha, could have accomplished such a feat with the materials at hand. The bandit might even survive, if he could staunch the blood loss, though some might argue the value of such a life. Kakashi was sure he should look somewhere else, avert his eyes. This vision would come to haunt him at some point, he gathered, but there was some morbid fascination in the accidental handiwork. He guessed Tsunade, the most skilled medic-nin of their time, might be able to safe the bandit's virility, but only if she were to walk into the glade right this instance.

A~and nope. Gonads are a goner. Now the world is one eunuch richer. Oh well.

"Say, Naruto, what possessed you to use such a technique?" While directing that question at his blond student, a side glance at Sasuke showed the other boy gradually regaining his senses. Not that he had been in any danger of being knocked out, quite the opposite, he'd been the one who knocks. But he had had the misfortune of standing right next to the patient of high velocity remote circumcision writ large, courtesy of his teammate. If there was such a thing as psychic shock (there wasn't), then the lauded teen genius would have been the one mostly affected by it, simply due to proximity.

"Leaving the obvious accuracy issue aside, there's the danger to your teammates and comrades on the field when you deploy techniques they not only know you can do, but, much more relevant, they don't know exist!" Both of the boys were in the process of regaining some colour in their faces, while the theoretical survivability of the eunuch bandit had turned into a charity case of miracles. Unless Tsunade… but no, even she would be hard-pressed.

"I–, I–" Naruto began, stuttering, "I was trying to kick bark at him! Only that!"

"And why didn't you do so? The splinter hardly flew of its own accord." He grabbed a bit of the bark of the recently fallen tree whose bark Naruto had intended to kick. It came loose easily enough.

"I… I used the same technique like when Sakura said I cheated in Wave." Sasuke perked up at that. Though he'd been helping the bridge builders on that day, Sakura did drone on and on about something including sand and Naruto the next day, when it had been their turn to spar. He had quickly tuned her out at the time, preoccupied with his own thoughts as well as reading Sakura's movements and subtly nudging her practiced but predictable moves into a more natural progression that was eminently less easy to read.

"I used chakra to increase my hold on the wood, right? Then I decreased the hold's depth and twisted my foot to loosen the bark for the kick. Then I cut my hold by that foot to kick it, but had an idea while raising it. If I could hold onto the bark for a moment while I kicked, I'd kick more bark at the bandit. But–" Kakashi-sensei interrupted him.

"You did exactly that. You kicked and 'held' bark for a moment, but you obviously need more training. While the technique would have theoretically worked, in practise you lack the fine control needed." To prove his point, Kakashi did exactly as Naruto had described, kicking significantly more bark than seemed reasonable for the size and speed of his foot. Insecurity was plainly visible on Naruto's face. He wasn't sure if he'd be reprimanded for what he did, commended or something completely different.

Kakashi took the third option, the one that would free him for a few days from the children he was assigned to teach. Incidentally, a new volume of Icha Icha Paradise had just hit the book stores, Volume 23: 'Quorum sensing'.

"Naruto, you will teach Sakura the basics," Kakashi smiled inwardly at the groan that evoked, "and she will show the fine chakra control to both of you." He included Sasuke with that, who scoffed at the implication of him lacking the necessary aptitude. The fact remained, regardless of acknowledging it or not, the boy did lack the fine control, though to a lesser degree. "Once all three of you can kick a lot of bark, you, Sakura, will teach you boys to reliably repeat Naruto's shrapnel launching technique. You can do that on training ground 12, that's cleared for use of explosives." Naruto was about to interrupt when Kakashi answered his question before he could ask it. "Sasuke, you know where that one is." Kakashi was about to add something about Sasuke's clan, the Uchiha's and their proficiency for fire and explosive techniques, but quickly quashed that train of thought. Too many old wounds, for both of them.

"Make sure to sign your use of that training ground in the Hokage tower. You don't want any civilians walk into the line of fire of one of your wooden missiles." He looked each of them in the eyes to make them aware of the import of this procedure. Naruto looked as if he had a question, though.

"But, sensei, why a training ground for explosives?"

He smiled without any humour.

"Because the last time I saw shrapnel this size," he was pointedly looking at the bandit and thus reminding them of the lethality, "was when an overeager lumberjack had the brilliant idea to use explosives for his work. He used too much. The explosives cleared a radius of about twenty metres. The shrapnel killed every tree in a radius of another twenty metres. Hundreds of trees, pin-cushioned by wooden splinters the size of a small finger to that of a thigh."

After cleaning up the clearing – it would simply not do to let bodies fester in the wild and let them feed the animals – the team finished the patrol. All four of them were on their way back when Kakashi indicated for Naruto to fall back a few steps. Sasuke and Sakura shared a glance back at their teacher and at each other, then continued their jumps through tree tops a few paces ahead of their team leader.

"So, Naruto," Kakashi began, "I wonder whom you learned this particular technique from…"

* * *

**Note:** What the shell is wrong with me? Why am I still writing? That's about 8k words in a single day! Somebody kill me, for I am clearly insane (°_° )

Also the next update _will_ take longer. I have two reasonably major things to finish in the next five days, so no time for writing. Definitely not the ten hours or so I spent today. Critique and comments are welcome, they help me to improve. If you're so inclined, there are a few in-jokes or shout-outs in this chapter. Did you catch 'em all?

(Published midsummer twenty-fourteen Hah, who else can say that? I think from now on I'll only put new chapters out on dates that have a name to them.)


	3. Water

**Note:** I decided this story will deviate from canon. This includes backstory and world building aspects as little as I can manage for it to still make sense. Hopefully you'll only notice the changes next chapter, but some appeared earlier, admittedly. I also wondered if animals other than humans used chakra, but according to canon they don't?

Since I forgot to mention it: this story is purely for entertainment purposes. There is no intent to infringe on any entities' rights, nor any enterprise to make money with it.

* * *

The smile in Kakashi's single visible eye was one of mischief, not amusement. "Well well well, since all three of you are on your way to actually mastering tree-walking, not merely learning it, why don't we try something else to motivate you." He was casually walking on the water, his three students standing on the shore.

"I doubt either of you boys will get this anytime soon," he said, with the same sentence both riling them up as well as motivating them, "but you, Sakura, I see learning this in no-time." No-time was an obvious exaggeration, but close enough. Additionally, it did confirm her advantage in at least one regard against the boys. He suspected she had been feeling some inferiority to them, something Kakashi planned to change.

After some squabbling all three of them removed their shoes and started with their exercise. Sasuke, as expected, sank with his feet straight through the surface of the water into the mud at the bottom. Sakura on the other hand did sink as well, but not nearly as fast as her beloved team mate did, and not nearly as deep, either. And Naruto was of course the odd one out. While incapable of walking on the surface, he did stand perfectly fine on the muddy bed of the lake Kakashi had chosen for the exercise. Its water had a green-brown colour and Kakashi suspected the only reason this body of water didn't turn toxic yet was a precarious balance between a host of factors. At least the electric eels he could barely discern roaming the bed didn't seem to mind.

"By the way, I wouldn't drink this water: it would probably make you ill. You're doing fine so far, Sakura. Naruto, Sasuke, in your place I'd be careful. There are electric fish dabbling at the bottom of this lake, and I don't think they'll appreciate you stomping on their heads."

The dark haired boy looked with a mixture of worry and dissatisfaction at his sunken feet, while Naruto exclaimed. "What?! Why didn't you tell us sooner?"

"No reason," Kakashi replied, the single eye showing mirth.

* * *

"Naruto, like our hands were a puppet for your sticky foot, the mud is a learning puppet for your water-walking. At least I think it is."

By now Naruto knew what to expect from his newest friend. She had some insights into chakra application he didn't think of and they would test it. If her idea worked out, fine, he had another trick in his repertoire. If it didn't, they'd talk some more and try to come up with something that would work and then repeat the procedure. So when she had asked him to bring some sand to the muddy shore he simply shrugged and did as he was told.

With a shovel she had brought herself she shovelled some into the mud and then, once her pants were cuffed, she started mixing both with her feet. While she did that she continued to explain. "You see, we in Wave Country deal with a lot of mud, especially during the rain season. And soon enough you start to notice things, or at least I did. When you have a lot of water and a little of earth, the 'mud' is essentially brown water. When you mix it the other way around you get wet earth. It's all about the mixture, you see? So if you want to learn to walk on water and can already walk on sand, we add water to the sand until you can't walk anymore. You learn to deal with that mixture, and then we add more water till you start to sink again. And we repeat that process until the mixture is actually water."

They did just that and it was during one of those repetition cycles a stray thought got Aoi curious.

"How's the winter in Leaf?"

"Huh?" Naruto looked up from the tub he had filled with mud. This was really way easier than doing the same exercise water-side of the shore. No waves, no changes in composition; he could really concentrate on getting his chakra flow sorted out right. As an added bonus, he always had a view on the bridge-in-progress and his clones helping out. Strangely enough, by now he knew exactly what everyone was doing on the bridge in a general sense and every clone, once created, knew how he could help a particular worker the most.

"Oh, it's mostly nice. In some winters it gets cold enough to snow, but mostly it's just cold and dry. What about here?"

"Well, we don't have much of a winter, really. Usually we only care if it's rain season or not, since that influences a lot of agriculture and fishery, but about every four years around the second moon of the year we can see whales at the horizon, spouting their geysers. That's an indicator that a lot of herring is coming through, so we switch to fishing those for a while."

Before and during their conversation, Aoi had been working on building a scale, apparently. For that she'd taken a rod of wood and marked its middle. When she tied a string at the middle of the rod, she could see if the middle she had measured was actually the middle of the weight of the rod. On the fourth rod she got lucky: when she tied the string around its middle, the rod remained perfectly horizontal. On the ends of the rod Aoi then tied two very small baskets she had borrowed from her home. Now the rod wasn't horizontal anymore, so she had added some sand to the higher hanging basket.

"Since we only have them every few years we can sell them for a lot. Or we could," she grimaced. "That Gato had bought all our ships and started renting them back to us. If I'd been old enough to understand what that meant I'd have warned uncle Kaiza, but…"

She had stopped building her apparatus, her face grim. Naruto noticed, having been informed of Kaiza's fate, as well as that of many of the other citizen of Wave after Gato had effectively taken over. Having bought up all ships and renting them back to the original owners at astronomical prices, the magnates motives were unclear but the results inevitable. The formerly well-off country was impoverished soon enough, the citizens growing hungry, unable to fish even for sustenance as Gato's enforcers kept everyone from using ships unless they paid up front. And then they started taking active measures to suppress any sign of revolt…

"…That's all in the past now," she continued, sighing. "Uncle is dead, but so is Gato. And the bridge will hopefully make trade easier, especially since we now can use our ships again." A melancholy smile crossed her lips. "Thanks, by the way, if I didn't say that already. That goes for all four of you. Without you we'd all be dead, including dad."

"That's my ninja way," Naruto began, getting louder and more enthusiastic as he continued. "Helping where I can, and never giving up!" After unconsciously striking a pose, he looked sheepishly down at his feet atop the comparatively dry mud. It wasn't actually dry, just less wet than most mud. He would take a few seconds to start sinking in if it was that thick, but it already had been a few seconds and the chakra beyond his soles had adapted well to the fluidity of the viscous liquid. He stopped his walking trick and was about to sink –very slowly– when he added some more water to the tub. Mixing it thoroughly he tried the not-sinking on the now wetter surface, with mediocre success.

"If Kaiza was your uncle, is Inari then your… cousin? And Tazuna is your cousin-granddad? Double-uncle? This stuff always confuses me…"

* * *

A jab connected to Naruto's jaw, but not as hard as it could have been. He nodded at Sakura, conceding her point. She in turn corrected his posture a bit, so he would have an easier time blocking her fist the next time she'd try the same approach. For good measure she did, with Naruto gradually blocking it better. She didn't realise that the correction she used and applied had been administered to her by Sasuke in turn.

"So, how's Inari? Still the same snotty brat? I haven't seen you play with him as much the last week." Sakura stopped her repeated attacks of the same style and returned to a more general taijutsu, incorporating kicks and punches, as well as the occasional unexpected kunai thrown when they were separated far enough.

"He's fine," Naruto grunted, "been helping on the bridge, actually." He had started to incorporate the ground-picking into his fighting style, as had Sasuke, though Sakura was still reluctant. She thought throwing sand at people was a bit undignified and unladylike. She'll come around eventually, Naruto thought. "Transporting material, handing the workers tools, even hammering a nail here and there. Tazuna always keeps an eye on him, and one of my clones both, I made sure of it." He released the earth, throwing it into the air above Sakura instead of at her directly.

She didn't like that. "Stop it! Now I'll have to wash my hair again; it'll take forever to dry," she sighed. To add injury to insult, sand trickled down from above, getting into her eyes. Wait. Had that been his strategy? That sly…  
Flipping over her back she shock of most of the sand and was shooting some fiercely at Naruto at the same time. He angled his arm across his face so it blocked most of the minuscule projectiles, only smudging a cheek.

"Maybe get Inari to play with her? Both having fun?" Naruto mumbled, more speaking his thoughts than actually addressing Sakura. While he did that, he'd shortened the distance, whereas Sakura had fled straight for a tree. But instead of running up its side she flung herself at it and rounded it by appearing to flop facedown around the trunk, as if she stumbled on ground but more elegantly, and used her thus retained speed in a kick of unexpected force. It hit Naruto straight in the chest, subverting his tailing her completely and flinging him a few meters back. Sakura wasn't sure if she'd heard correctly, but feared she might have cracked a rib. Of Naruto, of course, not her own.

"Ouch." After his tumble had stopped, Naruto rose, holding his chest. "Air." The strength of the attack, really a kind of double kick considering the forces applied, had knocked the air out of his lungs. Consequently he held up a hand to indicate a need for pause. It was only a sparring match, after all. Slowly his very shallow breaths got deeper and deeper.

"That was very good technique," Kakashi said, who had seen the whole exchange, if not exactly listening in. "Naruto, don't try to repeat her move that unless you want to eat bark. _Maybe_ after water-walking. Sakura, you shouldn't try this another time, either. Though such a move is hard to read, it leaves you lying essentially prone around a tree for a moment and can't easily be stopped once its started. If you had jumped further ahead and Naruto'd tried to slice you with a weapon, you'd have avoided that slice. But if you'd tried your move, you wouldn't have changed your trajectory sufficiently; you would have received a cut at least and your death at worst." Admonishment finished, he congratulated her. "Nevertheless, that was a great move showing superior chakra control. When did you learn it?"

"Just now. You had shown us you could lie on the underside of a tree branch, so attaching yourself using a sequence of tenketsu points was obviously possible. The rest was just timing."

Kakashi's estimation of Sakura's abilities just rose a few notches, putting her from 'above average' to 'top 5% of her age bracket'. But something didn't gel… he made a mental note of that while sending Naruto to get Sasuke for the three-way training session.

* * *

It had taken Sasuke and Naruto the rest of the Wave mission, about three weeks, to be satisfied with their results in tree-walking. Finally they could stand on the side of a tree for minutes on end, lay down on the underside of a tree branch and keep laying there as if they had no care in the world. Since this didn't require them to keep their bodies tense like the vertical walking did, they actually _could_ do that pretty long. Kakashi had egged them on to try falling asleep that way, though he of course did it in a way that made them think it had been their own idea. Sakura meanwhile was pretty far along in learning water-walking, and strangely enough, so was Naruto, much to the dissatisfaction of Sasuke. Apparently his talking with and learning from his friend by the bridge did teach him something. Kakashi wasn't exactly sure what exactly that was, though. Confidence in his abilities? A lack of prejudice by others when dealing with him? One of her odd insights into a field of academics she couldn't have the slightest inkling of? Whatever it was, it had a positive effect on the boy, so he wasn't one to judge or begrudge the results.

Sasuke was like both his teammates a genin fresh from the academy, but a ninja still. As a team they had had their fair share of D-rank missions, many of which consisted of what he deemed busywork: Helping shingle a roof, looking for pets, doing groceries and alike. It was hardly work worthy of a ninja, even less so of him. He didn't give a lot about his nominal societal status; instead he was more bothered by the slow progression towards his goal those D-ranks accomplished. So it infuriated him inwardly when he saw Naruto having more proficiency at their first try of water-walking.

Their training (and mission) was cut short due to their own work, though.

The celebrations for the opening of the bridge came earlier than expected, and with them the end of their mission in Wave. Naruto hadn't just spent time with the curious girl Aoi, but also with the (formerly) disillusioned Inari and the lot of workers actually building the bridge. While the other two ninja kids had also helped where they could, the influence and impact Naruto had had on the morale of the workers was noticeable the most. He had been constantly and energetically talking with each and every one of the craftsmen, directing their thoughts away from the injuries and even losses they had received mere days after the arrival of the ninja and instead directing their views at the future ahead, bright with prosperity and possibilities.

So it came as a surprise to few when the name for the bridge was revealed: Great Naruto Bridge.

It connected the biggest of the island of the Land of Waves to the Land of Fire, ensuring a more direct trade route for both countries, initiating the rise of Wave from poverty back into prosperity.

* * *

Team 7 had chosen an appropriate training ground for their second week in water-walking, and everyone showed improvement. After having a talk with Sakura about her previous reluctance to show her chakra control prowess, she was standing on the surface of the clear pond as if she didn't have a care in the world. Naruto was ankle-deep in the water, his feet about half a metre above the muddy bed. Sasuke wasn't drowning, at least. He actually wasn't bad, even, just compared to his team mates he was infuriatingly far behind, if he were to give his opinion. He didn't, of course. Tt showed in the way his jaw was set, though. Thigh-deep into the water his feet were just above the bed. Reading the boy's body language Kakashi _really_ hoped that motivating by infuriating worked with him.

"Sakura, I want you to squat down and put a hand on the water like you did with your feet. Yeah, like that. And now do a handstand."

"Absolutely not!" Sakura turned red when she considered how her qipao would fall. Not that the boys hadn't seen the sports pants she wore underneath, but that was only glimpses and during sparring. This would be more like a peep show than anything else!

Kakashi sighed as he reasoned her reluctance. She'd need to get rid of that if she wanted to be a successful ninja, but that was a lesson for another day.

"Then do a cartwheel instead."

After a moment of consideration she did just that. A cartwheel. On water. With her not rising the slightest wave. Kakashi raised his estimation of her to 'best in age bracket'. He would have been able to replicate her feat, of course, but he was older and more experienced in manipulating his chakra outside of his body. That she'd been able of such a degree of fine control at twelve… Maybe he ought to hint for her to go for medic-nin?

Naruto was struck speechless by the demonstration of the kunoichi. What? How? Wow… He'd absolutely have to master water-walking! That was awesome!

Sasuke in turn only seethed more at the success of his team mates. True, he had accomplished more, growing from nothing to something, whereas the other two already had had some headstart in regards to water-walking, but he was a _genius_! Lauded by teachers and instructors alike for excelling in all tasks given; he was even surpassing those expectations with his talent and determination, teaching himself new techniques. That still made him wonder:

Why. Was. He. Last?!

Unbeknowst to him, he wasn't, not really. Unlike Sakura, who had simply even more natural aptitude for chakra control than he did, his self-proclaimed rival Naruto was a creature of stubborn determination. While Sasuke had used the regular task of helping the bridge builders to build up his muscles, his speed and applying his tree- and wall-walking judiciously, Naruto had done the same and more.

Both had a fierce regimen of daily exercises, both spent the late of day training to the brink of exhaustion, but Naruto had an… 'implanted' talent Sasuke did not. The sole remaining member of the Uchiha clan hadn't really had a chance to glimpse at it when Naruto burst the cage of ice mirrors during the fight on the bridge a few weeks past. Sasuke had only felt pure terror, mind-numbing in its intensity as he slipped into unconsciousness at that time, succumbing to injuries. He didn't see the regular chakra of his team mate be drowned out by one that was different, didn't feel the malevolent nature, chakra on a scale that it was quite frankly inhuman and indifferent to the same. And it had come from inside Naruto. He hadn't been born that way, the creature responsible had merely been sealed inside of him, but his body had adapted, had needed to adapt to it nonetheless. It continuously converted the foreign chakra into one in alignment with Naruto's regular chakra, and in the process did a whole slew of other stuff.

To make a long story short: Naruto had chakra to spare. If he were to use a chakra-intensive technique, he wouldn't even notice at first. Generating Shadow Clones is nothing to sneeze at – they're fully corporeal and for the most part indistinguishable from the original body, but such versatility comes with a high chakra price, one that Naruto for the most part doesn't notice. And consequently, he had _really_ bad moderation in his chakra use. The amount he used for the barely floating was inordinate compared to that of Sasuke or Sakura. Either of them would keel over after a minute or less if they were using as much as he did.

"Sasuke, you need to continue training, but you're doing well so far. Sakura, you obviously mastered water-walking for the most part; I'll show you some tricks later. Naruto, you're… what are you doing?" Kakashi looked at the big cloud of muddy water that was surrounding Naruto's feet. It looked as if someone had let a gaggle of children play in that water for an hour, thoroughly disturbed as it was.

"Trying to stand on water?" Naruto looked down at his feet, invisible inside the incredibly murky water, then at Sasuke, whom the murky cloud was encroaching on. He then turned to Sakura, who had a smug grin on her beautiful face, and Kakashi, neither disturbing the clear water much, if at all. "Am I doing something wrong?"

"Apparently so. Raise your leg while maintaining whatever it is you're doing." Naruto wasn't used to changing position while trying the water-walking, so it came as no big surprise when he started to wobble immediately.

Though it did surprise everyone, including Naruto himself, when his feet suddenly shot out under him, backflipping and dunking him into the water in the process. Rising from the cold water, sputtering incomprehensibly and looking bewildered.

'That was unexpected,' Kakashi thought dryly.

* * *

The Hokage smiled genially. Though the Wave Country mission had been a disaster, one he had feared would leave permanent scars on Naruto's refreshingly innocent soul, this recent report spoke a different language.

"Please, continue."

"As you say, venerable Hokage." The ninja giving the report was a freshly assigned chuunin, responsible for paperwork directly related to ninja skills.

"The incident under analysis: The subject, Naruto Uzumaki, no clan affiliation, of Genin Team 7 was receiving the second set of instructions in the general skill 'water-walking' on the fourth of this month at Training Site 3. Kakashi Hatake, no clan affiliation, jonin instructor of Genin Team 7, took note of an unusual discolouration of the water around Genin Uzumaki, one that did no occur with the other members of Genin Team 7. In consideration of this, Jounin Hatake ordered Genin Uzumaki to lift one foot while continuing his current chakra flow to the best of his ability.

"When Genin Uzumaki complied he received momentum passing the lateral axis, effectively backflipping on the spot. This unexpected movement caused Jounin Hatake to consider a more thorough analysis.

"The analysis: After taking multiple samples of the lake at Training Site 3 the undue disturbance of the body of water was confirmed (see figure 1). The test used, a variation of the general sampling test by Senju Tsunade (explained in reference 5), furthermore revealed an increased microbial activity in the lake and analysis of the sampling locations showed a clear correlation to the disturbance (see figure 2a and 2b). We conclude the lake received a significant infusion of chakra.

"This is corroborated by the report and demonstration of Genin Uzumaki of his 'water-walking' under controlled conditions."

The Hokage used this pause to politely interrupt the report. "I know you're eager to show your expertise and work, Genma, but I know my staff and trust their findings. You don't need to cite all your methods and results in minute detail. I will be satisfied with the conclusions for now. In your own words, if you please."

The chuunin visibly relaxed. The Hokage was right, of course: this was a report, not an academic board or court hearing.

"As you say. Uzumaki flipped on his back, infusing the lake with his chakra. This was due to the unique way he tried to water-walk. He expels chakra with no distinct property from the centre of his feet and sucks part of it back into his body at the rim of his feet. We wondered why he did it that way and he told us the reason was an improvised training method based on his tree-walking training. So his faulty water-walking is really a consequence of his equally faulty tree-walking."

The regular way, the one that is actually taught in Ninja academy, works by constantly emitting chakra with a certain property to stick to the tree. If one used too little of the chakra, the property didn't emerge; too much and the natural energy of the tree would repel the foot. Wall-walking was alike in the too little department and had equally negative results when one used too much chakra – the process became self-sustaining and increasingly chakra-draining. To remove one's foot from the surface required actual effort and time if one used too much chakra; certainly a no-go for ninja, who always needed to be on their toes and able to move without a moments notice.

"He didn't give his chakra any adhesive property, so Uzumaki compensated by manually developing a chakra-based vacuum. Not actual vacuum, of course, but energetically speaking it had the same effect, pinning his feet to the surface. He did this by using an inverted flow compared to his attempts at water walking: out the rim, in the centre.

"When he tried the same method in the water, his chakra interacted with the natural energy of the microbes, moving them and with them the water. Since the goal of water-walking is to walk _on_ water he increased the amount of chakra used and reduced the amount sucked back in. At some point he must have realised, subconsciously at least, that the arrangement of sucking and expelling chakra wasn't enough and switched them – inner foot expelling, outer rim sucking in. This gave him some amount of acceleration and a steady stream of water shooting from his feet, so to speak. The pressure differential created a lateral current supplying more water. All this accelerated water had the effect of lifting him partially out of the water as long as he kept his balance. But when he lifted one foot, all was lost and he backflipped."

The mirth that had snuck into the Hokage's eyes as the chuunin gave his report spilled forth into chuckles as soon as it was finished. That boy certainly was a surprise ninja in every conceivable way!

"What do you personally think of this, Genma?"

"On the one hand I want to say this is ingenious. On the other, it is foolhardy and a preposterous waste of chakra for the results achieved. If Uzumaki didn't have that, beg your pardon, 'inhuman' chakra reservers he would have soon collapsed from chakra exhaustion."

The Third Hokage gave a sharp glance at the 'inhuman' comment, but didn't comment further. Hayashi Genma had been a genin at the time that _beast_ had nearly devastated Konoha and was thus aware of the boys unique characteristics. The late Fourth Hokage, accomplished sealing it in the newborn Naruto. One of the Fourth last wishes was for the boy to be seen as a hero, not a blight. For that means the reinstated Third Hokage declared a law: Those not immediately in the know at the time aren't to be told of Naruto's status as a container for one of the nine tailed beasts, unless the council of elders, the Hokage or Naruto himself allows or does it. Yet the resentment directed at the sealed beast for all the death and devastation it caused still transferred to Naruto. The children and new citizens may not have known the reason, but they still picked up on and subconsciously resumed that resentment; Naruto grew to become the village pariah.

"Add your report to his file, minimum clearance of chuunin plus pariah adherent. Did Naruto mention anything else?"

"He did. He sourced his idea to a civilian girl he met in Wave; after the incident on the bridge, of course. They became friends, he told her about life as a ninja, she told him of her family and life in Wave."

"Ah, yes," the Hokage smiled genially, "trust Naruto to find friends in all places."

"One more thing: Hatake recommends a psychological evaluation of Uzumaki in the near future as well as, and I quote, 'some actually genin-appropriate missions.'"

"They are. Currently they're patrolling the route to the Land of Wave. There have been reports of increased banditry. Not surprising, given the new trade route."

* * *

**Note:** Unhappy with the Farewell scene. I still have the feeling some connecting fluff is necessary.

I get the feeling the more I write this story, the more background knowledge I need, simply to be faithful, if not compliant, to the canon information. And thus I integrate, extrapolate, write and add this knowledge; as I do I realise the farther I come, the less you need to actually have read or watched the original story. I actually like that.

_Yomamma3_ earns brownie points for pointing out that Naruto doesn't actually know the memory transmitting feature of the shadow clones. I changed the previous chapters accordingly, as well as generally editing them.

Since today is international kissing day, I celebrate that by not coming even remotely close to anything kiss-like in the story; the same will probably be true for the next chapters, which I expect to be in August at the earliest.


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